Bøger i Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture serien

Investigates the latent and manifest traces of the East in Pre-Raphaelite literature and culture.

[headline]Rethinks the relationship between architecture, literature and (in)visibility in the nineteenth-century city Ben Moore presents a new approach to reading urban modernity in nineteenth-century literature, by bringing together hidden, mobile and transparent features of city space as part of a single system he calls 'invisible architecture'. Resisting narratives of the nineteenth-century as progressing from concealment to transparency, he instead argues for a dynamic interaction between these tendencies. Across two parts, this book addresses a range of apparently disparate buildings and spaces. Part I offers new readings of three writers and their cities: Elizabeth Gaskell and Manchester, Charles Dickens and London, and Émile Zola and Paris, focusing on the cellar-dwelling, the railway and river, and the department store respectively. Part II takes a broader view by analysing three spatial forms that have not usually been considered features of nineteenth-century modernity: the Gothic cathedral, the arabesque and white walls. Through these readings, the book extends our understanding of the uneven modernity of this period. [bio]Ben Moore is Assistant Professor in English Literature at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is the author of Human Tissue in the Realist Novel, 1850-1895 (2023) and Co-Editor of the Gaskell Journal. His work has appeared in journals including Victorian Literature and Culture, Modernism/modernity, Modern Language Review and the Journal of Victorian Culture, as well as in various handbooks and edited collections.

Demonstrates what Victorian poetry tells us about the relationship between poetry and time Time and Timelessness explores the question of poetry's relation to time and argues that this relation is historically contingent - as the concept of time changes, so too do the shaping forms and definitions of poetry. Victorian literature provides a rich testing field for its hypothesis, since the nineteenth century saw momentous changes in the ways people thought about and experienced time. This book demonstrates that these changes were an important factor for some of the long-term developments in Victorian poetry, like its loss of cultural prestige, the popularity of mixed genres like the poetic sequence, the dramatic monologue and the verse novel, and the demise of metrical poetry as the norm. Moreover, the historical perspective offered questions some widely held assumptions, not only about poetry, but also about time itself. Thus, the theoretical relevance of this study extends well beyond its Victorian context. [Bio]Irmtraud Huber is Professor of English Literature at the University of Konstanz.

This volume examines the cultural importance of the coastline in Britain during a time of vast change.

This interdisciplinary study explores both the personal and political significance of climate in the Victorian imagination. It analyses foreboding imagery of miasma, sludge and rot across non-fictional and fictional travel narratives, speeches, private journals and medical advice tracts. Well-known authors such as Joseph Conrad are placed in dialogue with minority writers such as Mary Seacole and Africanus Horton in order to understand their different approaches to representing white illness abroad. The project also considers postcolonial texts such as Wilson Harris's Palace of the Peacock to demonstrate that authors continue to 'write back' to the legacy of colonialism by using images of illness from climate.

Explores the lasting cultural and political impact of the events of this remarkable yearOscar Wilde's libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry and its disastrous repercussions dominated British newspapers during the spring of 1895, but as this innovative study reveals, the Wilde scandal was by no means the only event to capture the public's imagination that year. Freak weather, a flu epidemic, a General Election, industrial unrest, 'sex novels' and New Women, trials of murderers and fraudsters, accidents, anarchists, bombers, balloonists and bicyclists were all topics of interest and alarm. Had Jack the Ripper returned? Did the Prime Minister have a dreadful secret? Were Aubrey Beardsley's drawings corrupting the nation's morals? Were overpaid foreign players corrupting English football? Could cricket save a degenerate nation from moral ruin?Drawing on strikingly diverse primary sources, Nicholas Freeman examines the recurrent preoccupations of a turbulent year, showing how 1890s' Britain is at once far removed from our own day and yet strangely familiar.

Argues against the repeated emphasis on literary form and for the artistic importance of literary contentAppeals to those interested in philosophy and literature, especially the philosophy of literatureBrings together thinkers from the analytic and continental traditions in aestheticsContains an updated and expanded version of the award-winning essay 'In Defence of Paraphrase'Makes a case for why Victorian literature and Victorian moral thought are worthy of attention Offers new readings of George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Augusta WebsterIt is natural to assume that if works of literature are artistically valuable, it's not because of anything they say but because of what they are: beautiful. Works of art try to say nothing, to use their content only as matter for realizing the beauty of complex form.a But what if appreciating the things a work of literature has to say is a way of appreciating it as a work of art? Often dismissed as too lengthy, messy, and preachy to qualify as genuine art, in fact Victorian narrative challenges our conceptions about what makes art worth engaging.

Rereading Orphanhood: Texts, Inheritance, Kin explores the ways in which the figure of the literary orphan can be used to illuminate our understanding of the culture and mores of the long nineteenth century, especially those relating to family and kinship.

Explores the interconnected creative partnerships of the Wattses and De Morgans - Victorian artists, writers and suffragists This is the first book dedicated to examining the marital relationships of Mary and George Watts and Evelyn and William De Morgan as creative partnerships. The study demonstrates how they worked, individually and together, to support greater gender equality and female liberation in the nineteenth century. The author traces their relationship to early and more recent feminism, reclaiming them as influential early feminists and reading their works from twentieth-century theoretical perspectives. By focusing on neglected female figures in creative partnerships, the book challenges longstanding perceptions of them as the subordinate wives of famous Victorian artists and of their marriages as representatives of the traditional gender binary. This is also the first academic critical study of Mary Watts's recently published diaries, Evelyn De Morgan's unpublished writings and other previously unexplored archival material by the Wattses and the De Morgans. Key Features:Reveals the ways in which the couples promoted progressive socio-political ideasDraws on extensive archival research and analyses unpublished writings, including diaries and poemsFocuses on neglected female figures in creative partnerships to challenge longstanding perceptions of them as the submissive or subordinate wives of famous Victorian artists, and of their marriages as representatives of the traditional gender binaryShows how male and female writers and artists engaged with mid-to-late Victorian feminism together and individually, reclaiming them as influential early feminists

Establishes the importance of the popular radical figure of the pantomime clown in the work of Charles DickensThis book reappraises Dickens's Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi and his imaginative engagement with its principal protagonist. Arguing that the Memoirs should be read as integral to Dickens's wider creative project on the theatricality of everyday existence, Jonathan Buckmaster analyses how Grimaldi's clown stepped into many of Dickens's novels. Dickens's Clowns presents new readings of Dickens's treatment of topics such as identity, the grotesque and violence within the context of the tropes of the Regency pantomime. This is the first study to identify the Dickensian clown as a unifying force for several Dickensian themes, overturning traditional views of Dickens's clowns as peripheral figures.Key FeaturesProvides a new reading of one of Dickens's most neglected texts, and firmly re-establishes it within the Dickens canon as both part of a wider project alongside his other major works of the period and an important influence on later work Identifies the pantomime routines of the Regency clown as a key cultural influence on Dickens's work, tracing significant new sources for his comical treatment of violence and his comedy more generallyOffers important new perspectives on two other key themes in Dickens's work - the use of food and drink within Dickens's articulation of the bodily grotesque and Dickens's use of clothing as a radical signifier of individual liberty

Examines the way in which the British transformed the Pacific islands during the nineteenth centuryThe discovery of the Pacific islands amplified the qualities of mystery and exoticism already associated with 'foreign' islands. Their 'savage' peoples, their isolation, and their sheer beauty fascinated British visitors across the long nineteenth century. Dark Paradise argues that while the British originally believed the islands to be commercial paradises or perfect sites for missionary endeavours, as the century progressed, their optimistic vision transformed to portray darker realities. As a result, these islands act as a 'breaking point' for British theories of imperialism, colonialism, and identity. The book traces the changing British attitudes towards imperial settlement as the early view of 'island as paradise' gives way to a fear of the hostile islanders and examines how this revelation undermined a key tenant of British imperialism - that they were the 'superior' or 'civilized' islanders.Key FeaturesThe first monograph to trace the Pacific islands as represented through the lens of British fiction and non-fiction across the long nineteenth centuryExamines texts written by Pacific islanders and published in the British pressSignificantly broadens our understanding of the British Pacific by analysing understudied Pacific texts and authors alongside more canonical works

Uncovers the link between Ruskin and the tradition of the aesthetics of spaceDiscusses a hitherto under-researched tradition of city-writing, linking Ruskin to modernismReads comparatively five important mid to late nineteenth-century writersMarries close textual analysis with historically and geographically informed contextFills a gap in the critical literature on city-writing between realism and early modernismCharting an 'aesthetic', post-realist tradition of writing, this book considers the significant role played by John Ruskin's art criticism in later writing which dealt with the new kinds of spaces encountered in the nineteenth-century. With chapters devoted to the ways in which aesthetic and decadent writers such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde built upon and challenged Ruskin's ideas, the book links the late Dickens to the early modernism of Henry James. The Aesthetics of Space in Nineteenth-Century British Literature gives a vibrant vision of what an aesthetically sensitive treatment of these spaces looked like during the period.

Dickens and Demolition' examines how tropes, characters, or extracts from Dickens' fiction were repurposed as a portable terminology in arguments for large-scale demolition and redevelopment projects in London during his lifetime.

Nineteenth-Century Settler Emigration in British Literature and Art is the first book to undertake a comprehensive survey of the literature produced by nineteenth-century settler emigration.

This book examines anachronisms in realist writing from the colonial periphery to redefine British realism and rethink the politics of institutions.

Dickson identifies the nineteenth century as the beginning of the large-scale absorption of the Arabian Nights into British literature and culture.

Crossing borders, political divides and genres, this book examines the intersections among literary works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mary Shelley and Wilkie Collins, journalism, parliamentary records and pamphlets, to establish Britain's imaginative investment in the seismic geopolitical realignment of Italian unification.

A scholarly monograph devoted to Jane Morris, an icon of Victorian art whose face continues to grace a range of Pre-Raphaelite merchandise Described by Henry James as a 'dark, silent, medieval woman', Jane Burden Morris has tended to remain a rather one-dimensional figure in subsequent accounts. This book, however, challenges the stereotype of Jane Morris as silent model, reclusive invalid, and unfaithful wife. Drawing on extensive archival research as well as the biographical and literary tradition surrounding William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the book argues that Jane Morris is a figure who complicates current understandings of Victorian female subjectivity because she does not fit neatly into Victorian categories of feminine identity. She was a working-class woman who married into middle-class affluence, an artist's model who became an accomplished embroiderer and designer, and an apparently reclusive, silent invalid who was the lover of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Wilfred Scawen Blunt. Jane Morris and the Burden of History particularly focuses on textual representations - in letters, diaries, memoirs and novels - from the Victorian period onwards, in order to investigate the cultural transmission and resilience of the stereotype of Jane Morris. Drawing on recent reconceptualisations of gender, auto/biography, and afterlives, this book urges readers to think differently - about an extraordinary woman and about life-writing in the Victorian period. Key Features: First scholarly study of Jane Morris, which seeks to challenge the stereotype surrounding her as melancholy invalid and Pre-Raphaelite femme fatale Innovative case study of the role of class, gender and sexuality in the formation of Victorian feminine subjectivity Contribution to emerging field of new biography and Victorian afterlives through the inclusion and examination of a wide variety of texts which construct the self Original exploration of feminine creative agency that challenges conventional understandings of masculine artistic autonomy in the Victorian period

"e;Thomas Hardy's fiction is examined in this book in the context of the seismic legal reforms of the nineteenth century as well as legal discourse in the literature of the era. The book examines the ways in which Hardy's role as a magistrate and his interest in the law impacted fundamentally on his prose fiction. It demonstrates that throughout his prose fiction Hardy engages with contentious legal issues that were debated by legal professionals and literary figures of his day, and argues that Hardy used fiction as a forum to question the extent to which legal reform improved the lives of women and the working classes. The study also looks at the ways in which Hardy deployed criminal plots derived from sensation fiction and reveals that the genre's engagement with legal reform influenced not only his sensation novel Desperate Remedies (1871) but also the plots of his subsequent fiction."e;

Explores the broad range of Elizabeth Robins Pennell's diverse writing career and interests This collection brings together twelve original interdisciplinary essays on the work of Elizabeth Robins Pennell, the American-born, London-based journalist, author and aesthete who published (or co-published) over twenty books and over a thousand periodical articles between the early 1880s and 1930. It features contributions from critics of English literature, art history, food writing and American Studies. Presenting a transatlantic perspective on this transatlantic figure, the collection also provides critical discussions of several Pennell texts including her Life of Mary Wollstonecraft, Our Sentimental Journey, To Gipsyland, Over the Alps on a Bicycle and The Delights of Delicate Eating and The Lovers as well as her prolific periodical publishing. Dave Buchanan is Associate Professor of English at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta. Kimberly Morse Jones is Associate Professor of Art History at Sweet Briar College in Virginia.

Traces the development of critical moral psychology in the central novels of the Brontes and George Eliot This book explains how, under the influence of the new 'mental materialism' that held sway in mid-Victorian scientific and medical thought, the Bronts and George Eliot in their greatest novels broached a radical new form of novelistic moral psychology. This was one no longer bound by the idealizing presuppositions of traditional Christian moral ideology, and, as Henry Staten argues, is closely related to Nietzsche's physiological theory of will to power (itself directly influenced by Herbert Spencer). On this reading, Staten suggests, the Bronts and George Eliot participate, with Flaubert, Baudelaire, and Nietzsche, in the beginnings of the modernist turn toward a strictly naturalistic moral psychology, one that is 'non-moral' or 'post-moral'.